SARAH RASLAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE |
August 29, 2010

Catherine Berry, of Houston, is among moviegoers disappointed Sunday by the Angelika Film Center's closure. Houston is left with only one theater devoted to independent films.

Houston's Angelika Film Center, a downtown hub for independent and foreign films, abruptly closed its doors on Sunday morning, leaving many film lovers disappointed and angry.

The Angelika's ticket windows were bare, displaying only a black and white flier that attributed the theater's closing to Bayou Place Limited Partnership terminating the lease.

"We regret to inform you that the Angelika Film Center is closed today," the flier reads.

The closure leaves the Landmark River Oaks Theater's three screens as the only home devoted to small and independent films in Houston. There were 14 such screens three years ago, prior to the late 2007 closure of the Greenway Theatre, also a casualty of a terminated lease.

"This is absolutely so unprofessional of a corporation," said Billy Martin, who had brought his family to see Animal Kingdom on Sunday afternoon. "And without a warning for them to do this to us, the people who have supported them for so long, is just unconscionable."

Officials with the Cordish Company — Bayou Place Limited Partnership's developer - did not return calls for comment.

The Angelika Film Center's management also did not return phone calls and employees at the theater Sunday declined to comment.

No notice of closure

The Angelika, which also has theaters in Dallas, Plano and New York, didn't appear to give Houston moviegoers any prior notice of its plans.

"It was so surreal - my wife and I went down there yesterday and saw a movie," said Sugar Land resident Rick Cooper-Evans. "No one at the Angelika said anything about closing yesterday. I wanted to see another movie there today."

When the parking attendant handed Cooper-Evans a flier that announced the theater closing, he assumed there had been a power outage and that it was only temporary.

"I'll miss it," he said. "I had been there about 300 times over the last 13 years."

Patrons weren't the only ones let down by the Angelika's sudden closure.

The Houston Cinema Arts Festival had discussed holding part of its second annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival there this year.